Went out to dinner last night (Il Bastardo in Chelsea, not too bad – but I wouldn’t go out of the way for it) to meet up with a couple friends from our Raleigh days.

Somehow Target / Wal-Mart entered the converation. While Wal-Mart elicited the typical “I don’t shop at big-box stores” from the well-dressed / well-shopped NYC boy, the reason surprised me. It was not because he wanted to support the little-guy. Rather, “Because I think the low quality perpetuated by these stores contributes to the increased ‘disposal society’ in America.”

Wow.

The argument is that the most even well-known brands make a cheaper quality of products to sell through the big-box stores. They need to cut corners to meet the pricing demands of these low-cost vendors. So what you see as a $20 discount, is partially due to inferior products. Which of course fail sooner than a high-quality product would. Which leads to more things being thrown away sooner. Y viola. Shopping at Home Depot, even when buying “green” products, is bad for the environement because we’re contributing to a disposable society.

<sigh> One more thing to think about when trying to change behaviors to be more thoughtful and good for the world.

So for all the new mom-friends out there … saw a good blog discussion today about cloth v. disposable. I even had a friend recently say they were thinking of going the cloth route (an impressive statement … I hope it works out).

Anyway, a 2-part series… I thought the comments at the end were interesting as well:

• How to Choose Green, Eco-Friendly Diapers, Part I (aka: The Case for Disposable Diapers)
• How to Choose Green, Eco-Friendly Diapers, Part II (aka: Cloth Diaper Brands You Can Trust)

To paraphrase for the busy new moms who can’t take the time to read further, it was less about the cloth diapers and more about laundering them well — if they’re being cleaned by a service, do they use chlorine? The writer felt she would be undoing the good unless she could rewash the diapers. As for disposables, she ended up finding a brand she liked (called Tushies).

Food for thought!